The Quantity Surveyor

To start from where we left off in the previous post, here we will deal with the following: C - Contingencies  - which would involve provisional costs to be incorporated for any expected/unexpected deviations.            Contingencies are costs which we assume for certain changes that are anticipated, this is sometimes considered as a percentage of works or sometimes just as lump sum amounts.  Most of the time, these amounts are utilized only under specific approval. But depending on the stage* at which the budget/cost plan is being presented, percentages can be allotted for the heads of design, planning and construction.         * Stages of budgeting will be a separate post, since I don't prefer clouding more information              under each post. D - Escalation  - which involves provision for market fluctuations in material, labour and fuel costs.     ...

Today's post is in continuation to yesterday's post on Budget/Cost Plan. I would be explaining the first two costs involved in the formation of a budget/cost plan: A - Construction cost  - which would involve all physical costs involved in the construction of the project.         So what are these 'physical' costs? Physical costs are all direct construction costs involved in the completion of the building.  This will be essentially bare costs excluding all forms of over-heads, profits and/or taxes.  This would include all material, labour and plant with appropriate wastage incorporated. Ph ysical costs are arrived based on the quantities that have been calculated from the drawings.                       B - Indirect costs  - which would involve preliminary costs, consultant costs, legal costs, approval costs, mock up costs, marketing costs etc. If the budg...

It has been a while since I updated this space, one for the lack of intriguing questions and two for the lack of time. I am back with a very basic question which was posed to me, it is simple, though the complexities of understanding it's true constituents is not as simple. The question on hand today is, what is a BUDGET or a COST PLAN? I would identify a budget or a cost plan as a systematic list of all conceivable  project costs. I use the word conceivable here, since costs that are not conceivable will definitely not form part of a budget. A budget should be comprehensive to an extent to be able to capture all costs relating to the project, this includes but is not limited to the following: A - Construction cost - which would involve all physical costs involved in the construction of the project. B - Indirect costs - which would involve preliminary costs, consultant costs, legal costs, approval costs, mock up costs, marketing costs etc. If the budget is being made...

Will be dealing with the very basic form of rate analysis from first principles, this would be part of a series of posts, as I feel it would be better to go step by step rather than fitting in everything at once. Part 1 - CEMENT MORTAR Cement mortar as the name bluntly suggests is the combination of cement, sand and water in a prescribed ratio. This mix ratio is generally determined by the usage of the mortar, that is, if it is used for block work, plastering or a simple flooring etc., the mix proportions used are various i.e, 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 so on and so forth, where the first part of the ratio indicates the quantum of sand and the second part of the ratio in indicative of the quantum of cement i.e., C:S Let's take this in three simple steps for about 10 cum of cement mortar: Step 1:  DRY VOLUME CALCULATION Since the mixing of materials is first dry, we need to calculate the dry volume of materials to be used, as a general assumption we consider between 30 to 40% of...

QSs' involved with both pre-contract and post-contract may be aware of the process of bench-marking, in-case one is not, this may be of help depending on the quantum of work one is looking to bench-mark. The process of bench-marking is essential, especially at the stage of preliminary cost estimates. What I would do here is first try to establish a simple explanation to what cost bench-marking is, so that the process becomes clear. Right, so the process of bench-marking involves a very basic elemental comparison of a particular type of project. Please note my mention of a particular type of project here, since one cannot possibly establish a comparative between a residential and a commercial project, nor will one be able to establish a valid comparison between projects in various zones of construction, hence a similarity between the projects will have to be achieved either by the use of permutations or by simply comparing projects which would remain similar at the base. ...

So this question came in from my dear friend Chaitanya. Q: In case client is supplying cement and sand do we need to add the material cost in the boq rate? A:  This is actually a simple concept that some builders follow to save/share on the VAT benefits, mainly input and output VAT (will not dwell into the taxation part here,since it's an accounting perspective and I do not have the qualification to advice on it) So, In case the material is being supplied by the client there can be three types of contract: - The 1st type will be a purely free  issue material contract, here the contractor will not include the material price into the BOQ prices, mind you this is not an "only labour" contract as the allied materials will still be in the contractor's scope. The contractor is therefore responsible for the reconciliation of the material and the client is responsible for the supply of the material, which makes the client directly viable to ...

This blog is dedicated to my teachers, professors, mentors and all the professionals I have been fortunate to be associated with, this is specially dedicated to the many who have told me that I need to take up teaching for the sheer fact that I love learning! So here you go.. Since  a large part of my experience is in the Indian market in particular Bangalore, the initial posts would be around this region. Even today I get approached by a few of my colleagues on the nitty-gritty of contracts that are being followed and also some basic questions involving Quantity Surveying that they find inaccessible on the web for some odd reason. So my posts are basically going to be in a Q & A format basis the many question I receive via email and WhatsApp. And as the description states these are things that I have experienced during my small career and would love for you as a reader to give me feedback which could help the many people reading this....